Why 'Gen Y'? Up-and-comers shun generational labels

EVANSTON, Ill. -- You can call them Generation Y, Millennials or even Echo Boomers, a tag created as a nod to their Baby Boomer parents.

But young Americans have a message for marketers, demographers and generational experts, all eager to decode the minds of today's teen-agers and early 20-somethings.

''Don't call us anything,'' says Utarra Bongu, a 20-year-old sophomore at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago. ''We're much more diverse than any other generation -- culturally and with what we've been exposed to.

''We're about defining our own success and being on our own.''

A few miles away, at a shopping mall in Skokie, 13-year-old Arielle Goodman scrunches her nose at the litany of labels.

''We're not even in high school yet!'' Goodman says of herself and her eighth-grade peers. ''How are we supposed to already know what our generation's like?''

Well, say the pundits, the secrets are in the surveys. The results of questionnaires show modern-day young people are an optimistic, stress-driven, team-oriented and multitasking generation.

''Whether you are a leader, a follower or a resister of your generation's trends, you have to accommodate the persona of your generation,'' says Bill Strauss, the Virginia-based co-author of the book ''Millennials Rising: The Next Generation.''

He points to the 1960s -- a time when he says no more than 12 percent of college students were full-fledged hippies, yet the radical few put a stamp on their generation.

''It's a reputation, a conception of your life,'' says Strauss, who defines Millennials as anyone born from 1982 onward.

And even if young people don't like it, corporate America is serious about figuring them out.

Take the Hilton hotel chain, one of scores of companies that's spending time (and money) to learn about the under-25 crowd. A recent survey done for the company determined that while older generations view the Internet as a time-eater, Generation Y -- defined by some as those ages 16 to 24 -- is the first to view it as a time-saver.

Such information can be used as a springboard for marketing to millions of people.

Employers are also seeking the advice of generation-watchers. Bruce Tulgan has written books to help businesses understand the ''fiercely independent'' Generation X and the itchy-footed Gen Y, which developed a reputation for job-hopping in better economic times.

''I think the downturn in the economy is coming in at a good time for Generation Y,'' says Tulgan, who advises employers -- from the U.S. Army to Johnson & Johnson -- on how to keep and attract young employees. ''I think they may have been getting a little carried away.''

Tulgan is quick to add that generalizing about a generation has its limits.

''You're talking about broad themes and strong common denominators,'' he says. In Gen Y's case, he says those themes have included ''self-esteem ethos in parenting, teaching and counseling; the fear of crime that led to overscheduling and over-supervision; (and) access to dozens of television channels and personal computers and e-mails and the World Wide Web.''

He and others who track the generations say it's hardly surprising young people don't want to be labeled.

''That's a teen thing. I mean, if you go back to the Boomers, my father riled against that label,'' says Rob Callender, a spokesman for Teenage Research Unlimited, a company that provides a national survey of teens to marketers twice a year. ''People don't like to be pigeonholed.''

But some young people say it goes beyond that.

''In our hyper-consumer culture, it makes us feel too much like a neat, little market that is researched for the sole purpose of selling us products that 'speak to our soul,''' says Justin Mendoza, a recent college graduate who -- despite his suspicions of the industry -- took a job in public relations for an advertising company based in Chester, N.J.

As a 23-year-old, Mendoza says he's not sure which generation he belongs to. Depending on who defines the age brackets, he and his peers could be members of Gen X or Gen Y.

''I feel somewhat stuck in the middle,'' he says.

Mike Nam, a 20-year-old computer engineering major at Northwestern, likes one nickname he heard when he went to high school in Korea: ''Gen N,'' or Generation Net, a moniker for a group that has grown up with technology.

But whichever labels happen to stick, he thinks history will treat his generation kindly.

''I hope when I look back at us, I can say we were timeless.''

On the Net:

Teenage Research Unlimited site: http://www.teenresearch.com

Bruce Tulgan's site: http://www.rainmakerthinking.com

This article published in the Athens Daily News on Thursday, April 19, 2001.